ahrefs Release Notes
Last updated: Mar 21, 2026
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All ahrefs Release Notes (61)
- Feb 26, 2026
- Date parsed from source:Feb 26, 2026
- First seen by Releasebot:Mar 21, 2026
Ahrefs Brand Radar Methodology: How we collect and model AI visibility data
ahrefs introduces Brand Radar to monitor brand visibility across AI and search, combining real search demand with semantic coverage. It uses Ahrefs keyword data, People Also Ask, and AI platform responses to model AI Share of Voice, estimated impressions, and monthly visibility trends.
Brand Radar lets you monitor and explore how visible brands are across AI and search. In this post, we break down how data is collected, modeled, and kept current.
Short version: The quick overview
Ahrefs Brand Radar = Real Demand + Semantic Coverage
Most AI visibility tools force a choice between behavioral relevance (what users actually ask) or semantic completeness (logical topic expansion).
Ahrefs Brand Radar gives you both. You capture what users actually ask (real search demand) AND cover what the topic structurally requires (semantic completeness).
Breadth + Depth = Maximum AI Surface Area.
Here’s how it works in practice: we collect keywords and SERPs from Ahrefs’ database with over 100 billion keywords.
To model how people naturally ask questions online, we expand queries using two different systems: Google’s People Also Ask (PAA) and semantic fanout.
Then run millions of these questions across AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and Google’s AI Overviews (+ AI Mode) and store their responses, so you can search through the text and links to see where your brand name (or any term) appears.
- Question sets are updated and tested in chatbots monthly, using a 90-day reporting window.
- Metrics like AI Share of Voice (SOV) and Estimated Impressions model how visible a brand is across popular topics, based on real search interest. They show potential visibility, not actual audience reach.
Extended version
Brand Radar helps companies understand how their brand shows up across AI and search.
It calculates AI Share of Voice (SOV) based on how often brands are mentioned or cited in responses from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode.
1. Data collection
Brand Radar models real-world user behavior, rather than fabricating prompts.
Queries are collected from Google’s “People Also Ask” corpus and Ahrefs’ 110 billion keyword database (28.7 billion keywords tracked with positive search volume), then expanded into related sub-questions using two different systems: PAA and Fanout. They overlap sometimes, but they serve different purposes:
- PAA (People Also Ask): PAA is based on real keywords searched by real people. It reflects how users refine their queries and what follow-up questions they actually click on in Google. So it’s optimized for behavioral relevance and engagement. It surfaces questions that users are genuinely curious about and frequently explore (read: real search demand).
- Fanout: Fanout is based on semantic relationships. It expands a query by analyzing meaning and topic structure, aiming to improve information retrieval and ensure broader topic coverage. Its goal is logical completeness rather than behavioral popularity.
For example, PAA may include questions that are popular but not directly helpful for answering the original question (e.g., for “what is the first sign of kidney problems,” PAA might suggest: “What foods help repair kidneys and liver?” or “What not to drink if you have kidney problems?”).
Fanout, on the other hand, may include semantically important sub-questions that structurally help answer the core query but aren’t frequently searched by users.
By combining them, Ahrefs Brand Radar gives you the full picture of your AI visibility funnel.
Each query is executed in supported AI interfaces. We store the raw responses, and users can then search this corpus to surface citations (linked URLs) and mentions (string matches) for any term.
Ahrefs AI Visibility Index
Monthly query volume (approx.):
- ChatGPT – 13.3 million
- Perplexity – 13.3 million
- Gemini – 12.4 million
- Copilot – 13.3 million
- AI Overviews – 143 million
- AI Mode – 41 million
All prompts run through the free, publicly available web interfaces of ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, and other supported platforms to reflect typical user experiences.
Locale parameterization mirrors the ratio of queries by country and language in our keyword database, allowing proportional representation across markets.
2. Data modeling
Because AI prompts are effectively infinite, Brand Radar focuses on high-demand, recurring topics that mirror search interest. Metrics are directional indicators, not exact traffic counts – best understood as modeled visibility signals, and not performance metrics.
- Estimated Impressions: weight mentions by Google search volume to model potential exposure.
Update cadence varies by platform:
- ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot are refreshed monthly, using a 90-day reporting window for stability and consistency. Each report includes all questions still valid within the 90 days before the selected date.
- Google AI Overviews and AI Mode update continuously, aligning with keyword database refresh cycles.
- Aggregated “All platforms” reporting combines data from both groups.
3. Transparency and limitations
- Coverage bias – Strongest in English; non-English markets represented proportionally.
- Scope – Chatbot usage is highly personalized, and the number of possible AI queries is effectively infinite. We prioritize the most common and high-demand questions based on popularity in our 110B keyword database and Google’s People Also Ask corpus. This ensures coverage of the kinds of questions most likely to surface in AI search results, even though long-tail or niche prompts may not always be included.
- Anomalies – LLMs occasionally generate hallucinated or malformed links. We do not filter out hallucinated or malformed links, as they reflect real model output.
- Cadence – Update frequency by platform is described in the Data Modeling section.
4. How to interpret the data
Brand Radar is best suited for:
- Benchmarking brand visibility and AI Share of Voice (SOV)
- Comparing competitor coverage across AI platforms
- Identifying co-citation patterns and visibility gaps
It is not a substitute for audience measurement or traffic analytics. Think of it as a media-visibility audit, showing what appears in AI and search – not who saw it.
5. Data foundation
Brand Radar builds on Ahrefs’ data infrastructure:
- 28.7 billion keywords filtered from 110 billion discovered
This foundation ensures Brand Radar combines verified search data with transparent, modeled AI visibility – staying true to Ahrefs’ focus on accuracy and real-world behavior.
Original source Report a problem - Feb 6, 2026
- Date parsed from source:Feb 6, 2026
- First seen by Releasebot:Mar 21, 2026
Global keyword research, backlink page types, and more (January 2026)
ahrefs adds a broad January update with global keyword research, deeper backlink and AI visibility insights, smarter site monitoring, more flexible reporting filters, and practical workflow upgrades across Rank Tracker, Social Media Manager, GBP Monitor, and MCP access controls.
We’ve got 17 updates this month – from unlocking global keyword research to deeper link analysis and more actionable site monitoring.
Let’s dive in.Brand Radar
Cited pages and cited domains API endpoints
You can now programmatically pull the pages and domains cited in AI responses, including how often each source appears and the estimated monthly search demand behind those mentions. This makes it easier to automate AI visibility reporting, track competitors, or plug Brand Radar data directly into your own workflows.
AI Share of Voice distribution and history endpoints
The remaining Overview-based Brand Radar endpoints are now live, covering AI Share of Voice distribution and historical trends. This lets you monitor how brand visibility shifts over time without relying on manual exports from the UI.
Custom prompt packages as a standalone product
Custom prompts in Brand Radar are now available without a full Brand Radar subscription. Teams can subscribe to a prompt package directly, reducing cost and friction for focused AI monitoring or research workflows.
Updated Search Demand tab
The Search Demand tab now combines total search volume and search queries in a single view, adds a new chart for search volume by location, and introduces a “Brand name only” mode to isolate true brand demand from category noise.
Web Analytics
Metric filters + Page domain filter
You can now filter Web Analytics reports by metrics like Page Views, Visitors, Bounce Rate, and Visit Duration. Metric filters apply across reports, even when the metric isn’t visible in the table, making it easier to isolate high-value or underperforming traffic segments.
Also, a new Page domain filter lets you filter by domain only, without protocols or full URLs. This avoids empty results and speeds up analysis on large or complex sites.New text matching modes
Filters now support “Doesn’t start with” and “Doesn’t end with” conditions, giving you more precise control when cleaning up or segmenting text-based data.
Site Explorer
Page types and categories in backlink reports
Backlink reports now include page type and page category columns and filters. Page types describe the format of the referring page, such as articles, listicles, or tools, while categories reflect the business niche or topic. This makes it easier to judge link quality based on context, not just volume.
For example, you can separate editorial links from industry articles from links coming from unrelated or low-quality niches.
The new page type and category fields are now available in exports, via the API, and through MCP. This makes them usable in automated reporting, integrations, and custom workflows outside the UI.Organic keywords language support
Organic keywords reports now include keyword language data. The Language filter also supports Exists and Doesn’t exist conditions, making it easier to analyze international visibility while excluding unclassified keywords.
Crawled pages chart update
The Crawled pages chart in Overview now shows only real, known 200 OK pages instead of all discovered URLs. This makes trends over time reflect actual content growth or loss, rather than redirects or errors.
AI Overviews history in Overview
AI Overviews history is now shown directly in the General view of Site Explorer Overview. This lets you track AI visibility alongside other core performance metrics in one place.
Site Audit
Latest activity feed for Always-on Audits
Always-on Audits now include a real-time activity feed showing errors, fixes, and notable changes as they happen. Each event comes with a short AI insight explaining why it matters, helping critical issues surface faster.
Alert sensitivity settings
Alert sensitivity is now configurable per issue. You can control when alerts fire based on issue severity and site size, reducing noise while still catching serious spikes.
Bulk actions for AOA alerts
You can now include or exclude multiple Always-on Audit issues and change their sensitivity in bulk. This makes configuring alerts across large projects far more manageable.
Bulk AI detection on Pro
Bulk AI detection is now available on Pro projects, capped at 1,000 pages per crawl. Pages with high AI content are flagged directly in Site Audit, making large-scale reviews easier without upgrading to Max.
Keywords Explorer
Global terms
You can now research keywords globally instead of being limited to a single country or language. Global terms help uncover worldwide demand and spot multilingual opportunities that local datasets often miss.
Search volume trend data in exports
Keyword exports now include granular historical and forecasted search volume trend data. This makes it easier to analyze demand changes at scale or share trend insights without rebuilding charts manually.
Other updates
Import history from Site Explorer in Rank Tracker
You can now import historical keyword data from Site Explorer into Rank Tracker, either when adding keywords to a project or via a bulk action in reports. This instantly backfills historical data, so you don’t need to wait months to see trends.
For example, newly added keywords can immediately show multi-year performance history if data is available.Bulk edit target URLs in Rank Tracker
Target URLs can now be assigned or removed in bulk. This makes managing large keyword sets faster and reduces manual errors in complex projects.
Social Media Manager updates
You can now upload custom thumbnails for LinkedIn video posts, publish a first comment together with your post, view timed engagement charts for published posts, and attach multiple images or videos to a single post across multiple channels.
GBP verification status monitoring
GBP Monitor now reports verification status for each business, helping you catch time-sensitive verification requests before listings become outdated or suspended.
MCP access controls
Enterprise plan admins can now control which users are allowed to use Ahrefs MCP, helping teams manage access safely. More granular controls are coming next.
That’s it for January! If you have feedback or feature requests, you can leave them on our Canny. See you in the next update.
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- Jan 15, 2026
- Date parsed from source:Jan 15, 2026
- First seen by Releasebot:Mar 21, 2026
Track your brand in Reddit and TikTok, custom AI prompts, and more (December 2025)
ahrefs adds deeper brand visibility across AI, search, and social, including TikTok tracking, Reddit visibility in Google Search, custom AI queries, cleaner prompt results, historical Google Analytics import, richer Report Builder widgets, page type classification, post performance metrics, and new API endpoints.
We’ve got 9 updates this month, focused on deeper brand visibility across AI, search, and social, plus a few quality-of-life improvements that make analysis faster.
Let’s dive in.
Brand Radar
TikTok tracking
Brand Radar now includes TikTok. The Video visibility section already covered YouTube, and now TikTok joins the mix, so you can see where your brand appears across high-traffic videos.
We scan video descriptions and transcripts, and only surface the snippets where your brand is actually mentioned, no noise, no walls of text.
YouTube and TikTok are both in beta and available to all paid plans. After beta, they’ll move into a Video visibility add-on for $199/month.
Reddit visibility in Google Search
We’ve added a new Reddit-in-SERP index that shows how visible your brand is across Reddit results ranking in Google.
It works similarly to AI Visibility, but instead of scanning AI responses, we look at Reddit titles, descriptions, and subreddit names that appear in SERP snippets. This helps you understand how Reddit contributes to discovery and decision-making in search.
Reddit tracking is free during beta. After that, it will become part of a broader SERP Visibility package, alongside Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, YouTube in SERPs, and more.
Custom queries for AI visibility
This is a big one: you can now track brand mentions for your own prompts, so you see how AI assistants talk about your brand for the exact questions your buyers ask, not just broad market prompts.
Custom queries currently support ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot.
To use it, attach a saved report to a project, set a tracking frequency, and add your custom queries. You can track daily, weekly, or monthly, with different frequencies per chatbot.
Brand Radar now runs on two datasets: the global Ahrefs dataset and your project’s custom queries. You can view both in the same report, or switch between them using the new Dataset filter, depending on whether you want market-level or buyer-level visibility.
Custom queries use checks based on prompt, model, and location. Checks can be included, prepaid, or pay-as-you-go. You can track usage in Account settings or add a prepaid package if you want predictable spend.
Cleaner prompt results
We’ve also improved how prompts look across Brand Radar.
Long AI responses are now collapsed by default, with full details opening in a side panel. We’ve added columns for mentioned brands and favicons for cited websites, making it much easier to spot patterns across results.
Favicons now appear across more reports too, including Cited Pages and Cited Domains.
“Your brand” quick filter
There’s also a small change that makes a big difference.
You can now include or exclude your own brand from mentions and citations in AI Visibility reports with one click. This makes it easier to separate brand-led visibility from competitor or category noise.
Web Analytics
Historical Google Analytics import
You can now analyze trends without losing historical context.
If your Google account is linked to a project, we’ll import historical Google Analytics data from before native Web Analytics tracking started, so your reports don’t begin at zero.
Not every GA metric is supported. Any excluded metrics are clearly marked with an asterisk and tooltip, so there are no surprises.
Report Builder
Expanded Brand Radar widgets
Brand Radar widgets now support more AI visibility metrics, including Citations, Impressions, and AI Share of Voice, not just Mentions.
We’ve also moved platform and metric selection directly into widget settings. Combined with widget duplication, this makes it much faster to spin up multiple views without rebuilding widgets from scratch.
Site Explorer
Traffic by intent over time
The intent history graph in Overview now includes organic traffic by intent, with traffic set as the default view.
This means you’re not just seeing where keywords rank, but whether those intents are actually driving visits.
Page type classification in SERPs
There’s also a new Page type column in the SERP overview report.
Using AI, we classify what kind of content ranks, such as articles, landing pages, or tools, with subtypes like how-to, listicle, or product pages. This makes it much easier to understand what Google rewards for a given SERP at a glance.
This is available across Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, and Rank Tracker.
Social Media Manager
Post performance metrics
You can now see how your posts perform directly inside Social Media Manager.
Every published post shows engagement metrics like views, reactions, and channel-specific signals, all in one place.
We’ve also added historical backfilling and post sync. When you connect a channel, we automatically pull in past posts, including content published before Social Media Manager was connected or posted directly on the platform.
This gives you a complete performance baseline and a clearer view of how each channel performs over time, not just what was scheduled in Ahrefs.
API updates
More Brand Radar endpoints
We’ve added new Brand Radar API endpoints, including Mentions distribution across AI clients and time-series data for Mentions and Impressions, with the same filters available in the UI.
Expanded Site Audit Projects API
The Site Audit Projects API now supports historical crawl data, individual project queries, always-on audits, and richer metrics like URL counts, errors, warnings, and notices, not just Health Score.
That’s all for this month. Check out our changelog for more updates, or leave any feature requests on our Canny board. Enjoy!
Original source Report a problem - Dec 19, 2025
- Date parsed from source:Dec 19, 2025
- First seen by Releasebot:Mar 21, 2026
Ahrefs Adds YouTube and Reddit Tracking to Brand Radar
ahrefs expands Brand Radar with beta indexes for YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit, giving teams one view of brand mentions across video, community, and Google Search surfaces to compare competitors and track where brands are discovered.
YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit tracking shows where brands are being discovered.
Ahrefs has expanded Brand Radar, its fastest-growing product, with new indexes for YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit. Teams can now track brand mentions across videos and Reddit visibility in Google Search – key surfaces influencing discovery and decision-making.
People now discover and evaluate brands on video and Reddit. Most monitoring tools still treat these as isolated mentions. Brand Radar brings them into one view, showing where brands appear, how competitors compare, and which channels matter most. This supports Ahrefs’ broader goal of helping businesses stay discoverable across every surface that matters.
Brand Radar’s video and Reddit indexes are built on the same infrastructure that powers its AI visibility tracking. This infrastructure processes over 239M prompts every month, giving Brand Radar the ability to index, compare, and monitor brand visibility across fast-moving surfaces. It currently includes:
- 162M+ AI Overviews
- 29M+ AI Mode queries
- 100M+ of queries across ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Perplexity
This scale lets businesses study any brand’s visibility across AI, search, video, and community platforms.
YouTube + TikTok (Beta)
Brand Radar now scans video descriptions, transcripts, and titles for mentions, surfacing only snippets with brand mentions, instead of full transcripts. Teams can quickly see which videos reference their brand and understand the context those mentions appear in.
Reddit in SERPs (Beta)
Tracks where brands appear in Reddit results shown in Google Search, including titles, descriptions, and subreddit snippets.
“ChatGPT and other AI tools are becoming an important discovery layer, but they’re not where demand starts. Demand is created on platforms that capture massive attention — YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit — where people talk, share, and influence each other. By monitoring brand mentions across these platforms, Brand Radar helps teams understand what’s driving their visibility in AI, not just where they end up being mentioned.”
– Tim Soulo, Chief Marketing Officer at AhrefsAvailability
YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit indexes are available while in beta for all paid Ahrefs customers. They will move into Brand Radar add-ons after beta.
Get started with Brand Radar at https://ahrefs.com/brand-radar
Original source Report a problem - Dec 17, 2025
- Date parsed from source:Dec 17, 2025
- First seen by Releasebot:Mar 21, 2026
17 Dec
ahrefs now lets Brand Radar track brand mentions for custom prompts and buyer questions.
In Brand Radar, you can now track brand mentions for your own custom prompts, so you see how AI assistants talk about your brand for the exact questions your buyers ask, not just broad market prompts.
Original source Report a problem - Dec 17, 2025
- Date parsed from source:Dec 17, 2025
- First seen by Releasebot:Mar 21, 2026
17 Dec
ahrefs adds a new Page type column in SERP overview, using AI to classify ranking content and subtypes.
There’s a new Page type column in the SERP overview report. Using AI, we classify what kind of content ranks, such as articles, landing pages, or tools, with subtypes like how-to, listicle, or product pages.
Original source Report a problem - Dec 11, 2025
- Date parsed from source:Dec 11, 2025
- First seen by Releasebot:Mar 21, 2026
11 Dec
ahrefs imports historical Google Analytics data into Web Analytics reports so tracking starts with past data, not zero.
In Web Analytics, if your Google account is linked to a project, we’ll import historical Google Analytics data from before native Web Analytics tracking started, so your reports don’t begin at zero.
Original source Report a problem - Dec 11, 2025
- Date parsed from source:Dec 11, 2025
- First seen by Releasebot:Mar 21, 2026
11 Dec
ahrefs adds post performance metrics in Social Media Manager with historical backfilling and post sync.
See how your posts perform directly inside Social Media Manager. Every published post shows engagement metrics like views, reactions, and channel-specific signals. We’ve also added historical backfilling and post sync. When you connect a channel, we automatically pull in past posts, including content published before Social Media Manager was connected or posted directly on the platform.
Original source Report a problem - Dec 9, 2025
- Date parsed from source:Dec 9, 2025
- First seen by Releasebot:Mar 21, 2026
Track your brand in YouTube, check competitor ads, and more (November 2025)
ahrefs ships a packed monthly update with YouTube tracking in Brand Radar, custom event properties in Web Analytics, stronger report building, AI content export to Google Docs, new Site Audit patches, Keyword Explorer filters, a new GSC site structure report, and passkeys plus API usage reporting.
We’ve got 17 updates this month – from a new YouTube index in Brand Radar to custom event properties in Web Analytics and lots more.
Let’s dive in.
Brand Radar
YouTube tracking
Brand Radar now covers YouTube. There’s a new Video visibility section with a full index of where your brand appears across high-traffic videos.
We scan titles, descriptions, and transcripts – and only surface the snippets that matter. TikTok support is next.
Available for free on all paid plans during beta.
Brand performance chart
Overview now includes a combined chart for Mentions, Citations, Impressions, and AI Share of Voice. One glance shows whether visibility is climbing, flattening, or slipping.
Better historical analysis
A new Web Pages historical chart makes it easier to investigate patterns. It respects all filters, so you can break trends down by URL, platform, or timeframe and actually see what changed.
Attach reports to any project
When creating a report, you can attach it to an existing project. We auto-populate the brand and competitors with AI, and access follows the project’s permissions.
First Brand Radar API endpoint
You can now pull Impressions programmatically using the same filters you use in the UI. Feed AI visibility into dashboards or models without manual exports.
Read API docs →
Web Analytics
Custom event properties
Add extra details like plan, variant, category, or size to any tracked event. Break broad events into clean, meaningful slices.
Attach properties via tracking script, CSS classes, or the JS API, then use them in Event properties or as filters across reports.
Report Builder
New keyword filters
Keyword widgets from Site Explorer now support Intents, Position, SERP features, and URL filters for tighter control.
Folders + widget duplication
Add reports to folders and duplicate individual widgets to speed up layouts. Full report duplication is coming.
AI Content Helper
Export to Google Docs
Export documents directly to Google Docs with formatting intact. Single-doc export for now.
Site Explorer
Paid pages + ads
Paid pages 3.0 now shows how many ads each page appears in. You can view the ads directly and filter by them – useful for tracking where competitors are spending and which pages they’re pushing.
Site Audit
Built-in bulk AI detection
AI content levels are now computed during crawls. The overview includes a pie chart showing site-wide AI distribution.
Click into the chart or use Page Explorer to list pages by AI level, track changes over time, and monitor competitor AI usage.
Opening any URL shows the highlighted AI-detected text that triggered the score.
Full functionality comes with a Max project boost; paid plans get a small free demo each crawl.
Patches updates
You can now patch more complex issues:
- Change canonical URLs
- Add redirects
- Publish internal link opportunities directly to your site
Canonical URLs, redirects, and robot tags require Cloudflare deployment. Link opportunities can be published via JS snippet or Cloudflare.
Keyword Explorer
Language filters
Filter keyword ideas by language within any location. Useful for multi-language markets, like expat queries in Japan.
Exclude sensitive categories
Filter out keywords tagged ADULT, VIOLENCE, DRUGS, VULGAR, and more.
GSC reports
Site structure
A new Site structure report mirrors the Site Explorer version. See your site in a tree-like layout and understand how each section contributes to organic performance.
Standard plans and above get full structure; Starter and Lite see the top level.
Keyword history graph
Add any keyword to the history graph. In comparison mode, current and previous periods display side by side for quicker change detection.
Social Media Manager
Several updates to make planning and publishing smoother:
Schedule view
A cleaner view of all upcoming posts across every connected account. Switch between compact and detailed listings.
Filter by author
Useful for multi-member teams who need to see who’s posting what.
Paste-to-upload
Paste images directly into the editor and they’ll upload instantly.
General
Passkeys
Add a passkey in Account Settings to log in without typing anything. Your browser, password manager, or hardware key handles authentication. Passkeys sync across devices automatically.
API usage report
A new report in Account Settings shows every API request in your workspace.
See whether requests came from APIv3, MCP, or Ahrefs Connect; filter by scope, token, or user; and check charts for request volume and unit consumption. History starts around Oct 14.
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That’s all for this month. Check out our changelog for more updates, or leave any feature requests on our Canny board. Enjoy!
Original source Report a problem - Dec 9, 2025
- Date parsed from source:Dec 9, 2025
- First seen by Releasebot:Mar 21, 2026
9 Dec
ahrefs adds organic traffic by intent to Site Explorer’s Overview intent history graph with traffic as the default view.
The intent history graph in Site Explorer’s Overview now includes organic traffic by intent, with traffic set as the default view.
Original source Report a problem